Page 103 of The Iron Earl

All the structures had been burned to the ground some time past. Maybe in the previous summer. Maybe in the year before. Grasses had overgrown what looked like a once tidy vegetable garden centering the structures. Rectangles of five charred buildings’ remains marked the footprints of what had once been modest cottages and barns.

A pit in the bottom of her stomach expanded, sinking. “We didn’t pass by here on the way to the tenants.”

“No. We took the long way there.” Lachlan’s eyes stayed oddly forward. “We stayed longer than I anticipated with the tenants, so this is the most direct way back to Vinehill.”

She slowed her horse, her eyes riveted on the burnt wasteland. “This. This is what I fear—it’s what I fear we’ll find all across the lands.” Her voice cracked.

A few strides ahead of her, Lachlan halted his horse and looked back to her. “You cannot take this on as your burden to bear, Eva—you were just as helpless against your stepfather and Molson as all the tenants.”

She stopped her horse, unable to hold the weight of his stare, and she couldn’t help her look from traveling over the destruction. All of it had burned to the dirt. Had to have burned for a long time. Just rubble. Ashes.

She glanced at Lachlan. His look remained fixed on her, unmoving.

It struck her then. His eyes hadn’t moved toward the devastation of the buildings. Not once.

Her jaw dropped. “This—this is it. This was where…” Her eyes swept across the destruction, searching—searching for the slightest clue that this was the spot. Not finding one, she looked to her husband, pinning her gaze on him. “This was where Jacob died, isn’t it?”

His jaw flexed, but he didn’t look away. He nodded.

She tugged her foot from her stirrup and slid off her horse without thinking. Dropping the reins, she walked off the trail, moving onto the dark ground still scorched black.

Standing in the center of where the structures once stood, she looked at what was left of them, one by one. A long rectangle, fieldstone marking stalls. A barn. Another rectangle, small with stones that dipped into the ground. A larder house. Another barn.

And two larger rectangles on opposites sides of the clearing.

Cottages.

Her stomach rolled.

She walked to the far large rectangle.

“Stop, Eva. Stop.”

She looked over her shoulder. Lachlan had dismounted and walked halfway to her. Halfway, but no farther. His face tortured.

All air left her lungs and she turned from the spot, walking toward him. She stopped an arm’s length away, her look intent on him through tears welling in her eyes. “If this is not my burden to bear, Lachlan, then it isn’t yours either.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “What happened to Jacob—you cannot continue to flog yourself for not arriving in time to save him. You think you were too late, but maybe you were right on time for your life to be spared. You don’t know what would have happened if you had arrived earlier than you did.”

A deep-set frown dragged down his face. He glanced past her shoulder, his look settling on the black outline of the cottage for long seconds. “I know what you’re saying, Eva, but the past is a vicious mistress—I will never be able to convince myself away from the belief that if I had just gotten here in time, all would be different. My brother would still be alive. I was late, and there is no changing the fact.”

“Lachlan—”

He shook his head, looking to her. “But I also cannot wallow in that belief as I once did. The anger that came with it—that festered within me for too long—is not to be revisited. And nor should you let the sins of your stepfather stain your soul.”

Her shoulders lifted in a heavy sigh. She could see the worry for her in his eyes, knew how desperately he wanted her to let this go. Yet it didn’t lessen the guilt settling into her chest. “It is heavy in my heart, that is all.”

He reached out, grabbing her shoulders and stepping toward her. “The solace in all of this is that the path led me to you, my wife, and that, I would never forsake. I cannot change the past, but I can embrace the future.”

“Our future?”

He nodded. “Our future. And we can visit all the lands, check in on all the tenants, right what we can as we build what will come. That is how we need to honor those of the past that have been wronged.”

A soft smile broached her lips. “I like that—it will be balm to my soul.” Her eyes met his, and she lost herself in the blue strands weaving through the hazel. Lost herself like she did every time she looked at him. “You are balm to my soul. Everything I never could have hoped for, and everything I ever needed.”

He smiled. “May I never disappoint, my love.”

{ Epilogue }

Evalyn stepped through the door that led outside from the conservatory and inhaled the heady scent of early summer boxwoods. She was late, but it had taken far longer to get dressed than she had anticipated.